Fundamentals of EMS, NMS and OSS/BSS

by Jithesh Sathyan
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Fundamentals of EMS, NMS and OSS/BSS

Chapter 22: Telecom Processes

Overview
This chapter is about telecom process models. The influence of IT models in telecom process models is discussed in detail. The main models
that have been used in this chapter for reference are eTOM and ITIL. A sample business flow and how it can be aligned with telecom standard
model is also taken up in this chapter. The chapter is intended to provide the reader with an overview of how different models can be applied
together for effective business process management.

22.1 Introduction
There are multiple telecom and enterprise specific business process models that are used in a telecom company for effective business
management. Some of the most popular ones include eTOM (enhanced Telecom Operations Map) for telecom process; ITIL (Information
Technology Infrastructure Library) for IT process, and quality certifications like ISO/IEC20000 and CMMI. The usage of eTOM and ITIL used to
be in two different domains, where telecom companies continued using eTOM and IT companies used ITIL. The change in telecom space
brought out by convergence and flat world concepts has resulted in compelling IT enabled services. Most telecom service providers then
started outsourcing IT business activities in the telecom space to external IT service providers. Many IT companies play a significant role in
current telecom industry. This is because the IT infrastructure is the heart of every business.
The increasing participation of IT companies in telecom industry has brought confusion on what process models need to be used to manage
the telecom business. IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) developed by the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency has been adopted
by many companies to manage their IT business. eTOM the popular process framework of telecom service providers is the most widely
applied and deployed for end-to-end service delivery and support framework for ICT (Information and Communication Technology) service
providers in the telecom industry. So identifying the purpose of ITIL and where eTOM can be complemented with ITIL is an area of concern in
service provider space.
Another concern for service providers is the migration strategy for moving from legacy to next generation OSS standards. Service providers
have to align to standard business models to meet the needs of managing next generation services. The main issue most service providers
face is the migration of existing assets and services to a next generation process and information platform. There will be multiple broken data
dictionaries, lack of a common definition of data across systems, nonstandard interfaces for data exchange between the various systems,
duplication of records across the systems, lack of transparency in business processes and systems, and improper mapping of data with
business process.

To address the main issues faced by service providers, this chapter will first discuss the overlaps between ITIL and eTOM. The issue of
aligning a legacy process to standards like eTOM is then handled. Finally the methodology to adopt eTOM with ITIL is discussed. Similar to the
other chapters in this book, a basic overview of concepts is presented before a discussion of the telecom process issues in service provider
space and the solution adopted by companies to solve these issues.

22.2 eTOM
The eTOM is a business process framework for development and management of processes in a telecom service provider space. It provides
this guidance by defining the key elements in business process and how they interact. The important aspect of eTOM is a layered approach
that gives enough focus to the different functional areas in a telecom environment. As discussed in the previous chapter, eTOM is part of the
NGOSS program developed by TeleManagement Forum (TMF). It is a successor of the TOM model. While TOM is limited to operational
processes, eTOM added strategy planning, product life cycle, infrastructure, and enterprise processes in the telecom business process
definition.
eTOM has a set of process categories across various functional areas like customer, service, and resource management. This makes it a
complete enterprise process framework for the ICT industry. eTOM is used by all players in the telecom space including service providers,
suppliers, and system integrators. Based on the holistic telecom vision in eTOM an end-to-end automation of information and communications
services can be achieved. eTOM has been adopted as ITU-T (Telecommunication Standardization Sector of International Telecommunication
Union) Recommendation M.3050 making it an international standard.

Though eTOM provides a business process framework for service providers to streamline their end to end processes, it should be kept in
mind that eTOM is a framework and its implementation will be different from company to company. It facilitates the use of common
vocabularies for effective communication between business and operations. eTOM is limited to business process modeling and the aspects
of information and interface modeling is handled as part of other elements in NGOSS. However, the implementation of eTOM is supported by
other NGOSS specifications like the shared information/data model (SID), telecom application map (TAM), NGOSS Lifecycle & Methodology,
and other NGOSS specifications. A direct mapping between these specifications is also provided by TeleManagement Forum.
Being a generic framework, eTOM can be applied on different telecom operators offering a wide variety of services. This implies that
compliance cannot be certified at the process level. eTOM compliance is achieved through the NGOSS Compliance Program offered by TMF.
The certification is based on tools and is independent of the organizations and the process flow. However, the conformance tests check the
business objects used and the operations framework to ensure that process implementations are based on eTOM.
The successful development of the telecom process documentation gives the ability to accurately decide on a new IT service provider to
support the entire range of business processes. Customers are outsourcing the delivery and support of their IT services to telecom companies
where the telecom company offers IT service management as a sellable service. eTOM helps to eliminate process gaps through visualization
of interfaces for interaction.

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Most service providers using eTOM were able to reduce IT costs, improve the product quality, and reduce time to market the product. Use of
eTOM as a foundation for process identification and classification ensures that the process repository will be able to evolve with industry best
practices. Though eTOM has a functional area on enterprise process, this part is not defined to the level of granularity offered for telecom
processes. So though eTOM can be considered a complete process framework, there are enterprise processes that will require more levels
of definition. TeleManagement Forum definitions have eTOM level 0, level 1, level 2, and level 3 process maps.

22.3 ITIL
The ITIL is a public framework describing best practices for IT service management. ITIL facilitates continuous measurement and improvement
of the business process thereby improving the quality of IT service. ITIL was introduced due to a number of compelling factors in IT industry:

n Increase in cost of maintenance of IT services.

n Increase in complexity due to changes in IT infrastructure technology.

n The frequent change management required in IT services.

n Emphasis from customer on quality of IT services.

n Flexibility to align the IT services based on business and customer needs.

n Need to reduce the overall cost of service provisioning and delivery.

The ITIL processes represent flows in a number of key operational areas. The main emphasis is on the stages in service life cycle, namely:

n Service strategy: IT planning is the main activity in service strategy. The type of service to be rolled out, the target customer segment, and
the resource to be allocated is part of the strategy. Market research becomes a key ingredient in service strategy where the market
competition for the service and plans to create visibility and value for the service is formulated.
n Service design: This stage in the service life cycle is to design services that meet business goals and design processes that support
service life cycle. Design measurement metrics and methods are also identified in this stage with the overall intent to improve the quality of
service.
n Service transition: This stage of the service life cycle is to handle changes. It could be change in policies, modification of design or any
other changes in IT enterprise. The reuse of an existing process and knowledge transfer associated to the change is also covered as part
of service transition.
n Service operation: This stage is associated with management of applications, technology, and infrastructure to support delivery of
services. Operational processes, fulfillment of service, and problem management are part of the service operation stage. The key IT
operations management is covered under service operation.

n Continual service improvement (CSI): This stage deals with providing value add to the customer offering good service quality and
continued improvement achieved by maturity in the service life cycle and IT process. The problem with most IT service companies is that
improvement is looked into only when there is considerable impact on performance or when a failure occurs. The presence of CSI ensures
that improvement is a part of the service life cycle and not a mitigation plan when an issue arises. Improvement will require continuous
measurement of data, analysis of measured data, and implementation of corrective actions.

The service delivery management is defined in a complete manner giving the processes, roles, and activities performed. The interactions
between processes are also defined in ITIL. Similar to eTOM, ITIL is also a framework and hence its implementation differs from company to
company. However, ITIL is mainly focused on internal IT customers without giving a complete consideration to all the players in the industry as
in eTOM. ITIL is not a standard, but standards like ISO 15000 is based on ITIL. So organizations are usually accessed against ISO 15000 to
check on its capability in IT service management and direct compliancy or certification from ITIL cannot be achieved. Other process
models/standards include ISO/IEC 20000, Six Sigma, CMMI, COBIT, and ISO/IEC 27001. ISO/IEC 20000 is related to IT service management
and most of these standards support certification.

22.4 Integrated Approach

From the discussion so far it would now be clear that eTOM and ITIL were developed for different domains and the framework for these
models was developed separately. However integrating the two models into a unified view offers added value to a telecom enterprise (see
Figure 22.1). Standardizing bodies like TMF are actively pursuing this goal of an integrated model. Compelling companies to select one of the
models and adhere is not feasible as both the frameworks provide insight and guidance to the enterprise to improve the service quality.
Another reason for integration is that the ICT industry has a community of users working with both techniques. These community users work on
both to offer a common reference/standard in defining a business process.

The focus of standardizing bodies is to identify and remove obstacles in eTOM and ITIL integration. The GB921 document of TeleManagement
Forum provides a workable method for implementing eTOM process flows with ITIL. This document demonstrates overlaid on ITIL process
steps as a background that enterprises can directly build support for ITIL best practice services on a process modeled with eTOM.

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Figure 22.1: Integration of eTOM with ITIL.

It should be kept in mind that merging or direct end-to-end integration of these models is not possible due to structural issues and domain
areas where these reference frameworks are used. The initiatives performed by standardizing bodies try to identify how these reference
frameworks can complement each other in offering telecom processes that utilize IT best practices. Detailed recommendations and guidelines
on using eTOM with ITIL are available in GB921 that can be downloaded from the TeleManagement Forum Web site. The sections that follow
will give more details on the process segments where eTOM and ITIL overlap.

22.5 eTOM and ITIL in ICT

There are multiple ways in which the activities in an ICT industry can be segregated. Let us take one such approach by dividing the ICT
industry into a set of layers (see Figure 22.2). The layers are:

n Customer: This is the top most layer of the ICT industry. This corresponds to the end consumer that uses the products and services offered
by the ICT industry. This is shown as a separate layer due to its importance in ICT industry where multiple standards and certification
techniques are available to measure the effectiveness of interaction with customers. The customer is an entity that interacts with the ICT
and the customer layer incorporates the activities involving the customer and the ICT industry.

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Figure 22.2: Use of eTOM and ITIL in ICT.

n Product and services: The end offering of an ICT industry can be a product or a service. While product is the common terminology used for
tangible offering of the provider, service is the terminology used for nontangible offerings. To site an example, online/mobile news is a
content-based service while a software game to be played on a mobile is a product offering.

n Organization: This is the glue layer between the service provider offering and the backend business process that makes the smooth
delivery of product or service possible. The employees and their capabilities make up the organization of the ICT industry. The
organization is effective in setting up business goals and the business process is intended to provide a framework to achieve these goals.
Customer interactions take place with the organization layer and the interaction is on topics in the product/service layer.

n Business process framework: This is the most important layer in context with the discussion in this chapter. It covers the business
processes used in the ICT industry. These include both telecom and IT business processes used in the ICT industry. The eTOM model
comes in this layer and defines the E2E telecom business process framework.
n Enterprise tools: This layer has the management applications and tools that are internal to the enterprise. It uses the data coming from
telecom and IT to effectively manage the enterprise. This is a glue layer that brings in automation and links the infrastructure with the
business process.
n Enterprise data model: Data from the resources is expected to comply with the enterprise data model. Similar to multiple process models
like eTOM and ITIL, there are multiple data models. For telecom companies the shared information and data (SID) is the most popular
data model and for IT companies the common information model (CIM) is most popular. So enterprise data model can encompass
multiple data models.
n Infrastructure: Enterprise infrastructure consists of communication technology infrastructure and information technology infrastructure. This
is the lowest layer consisting of the infrastructure used for product and service development.

The infrastructure is expected to support the execution of business processes. The infrastructure related information used by the business
process moves through different layers. While eTOM work is limited to the business process framework layer, ITIL can influence multiple layers
from the IT infrastructure to the organization. There is an overlap of eTOM and ITIL in the business process framework layer. However the
expanded scope of ITIL can be beneficial for eTOM.

An alignment between eTOM and ITIL at the business process framework layer will enable multisourcing and partnerships between companies
following these models. This will remove the existing confusion on which model to adopt and align with, and to comply with requirements of next
generation operational standards.

One of the main goals of harmonization between the business models is to meet customer driven requirements. Though customer is shown as
the top most layer consuming the products and services, the customer also interacts with the enterprise through the organization layer and at
times the customer can directly interact with the business process framework layer. Interaction directly with process is achieved using
customer self-service where customer interactions become a part of the business process.

Both models increase operational efficiency and foster effective productivity. They can result in considerable cost reduction without negatively
impacting the quality of service. Implementing eTOM telecom process that incorporates ITIL best practices will result in considerable

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improvement of service quality. The improvements in quality are mainly attributed to the presence of a specific continuous service
improvement stage in the service life cycle defined by ITIL.
To summarize this section, both ITIL and eTOM can be used in conjunction in an enterprise for effective management of services. The effective
method of using both is to keep eTOM to define the telecom process and ITIL for incorporating best practices. So the steps in preparing a
business process that uses both eTOM and ITIL will start with preparation of a process flow. Make it compliant with eTOM. Then filter and
merge the process with ITIL best practices. Verify the new model and ensure it still complies with eTOM.
TR143: "ITIL and eTOM—Building Bridges" document from TeleManagement Forum has many recommendations and guidelines on using
eTOM with ITIL. The document proposes extensions to eTOM framework to incorporate ITIL process and best practices. Convergence is
bringing in a lot of changes in process and information models to ensure that a single model can be used across multiple domains.

22.6 ITIL Processes Implemented with eTOM

Some of the ITIL processes that can be implemented with eTOM are discussed in this section. Service design, service transition, and service
operation are three high level ITIL service life cycle processes that can be implemented in eTOM. The sub-processes under these high level
ITIL processes can fit into different levels of eTOM model. Let us look into these processes in much more detail.
1. Service design: This process can be further subdivided into the following processes.
a. Service catalogue management: This process involves managing the details of all operational services and services that are
planned for deployment. Some information from the catalogue is published to customers and used to support sales and delivery of
services.
b. Service level management: This process mainly deals with agreements and contracts. It manages service level agreements,
operational level agreements, and service contracts. Service and operational level agreements are made with the customer who
consumes the product and services, and contacts are usually established with suppliers and vendor partners.
c. Capacity management: This process is expected to ensure that the expected service levels are achieved using the available
services and infrastructure. It involves managing the capacity of all resources to meet business requirements.
d. Availability management: This process is expected to plan and improve all aspects of the availability of IT services. For improving
availability, first the resource availability is measured. Based on information from measuring, an analysis is performed and an
appropriate plan of action is defined.
e. IT service continuity management: This process is intended to ensure business continuity. It looks into risks that can effect delivery
of service and develop plans for mitigating the identified risks. Disaster recovery planning is a key activity performed as part of the
IT service continuity management.
f. Information security management: This process is expected to ensure that a secure frame is available for delivery of services. The
security concerns are not just restricted to the services offered. Ensuring security is more an organizationwide activity.
2. Service transition: This process can be further subdivided into the following processes.
a. Service asset and configuration management: This process deals with managing the assets and their configuration to offer a
service. The relationship between the assets is also maintained for effective management.
b. Change management: This process deals with managing changes in an enterprise in a constructive manner that ensures
continuity of services. Change can be associated with organization changes, process changes, or change in the system caused
changes in technology.
c. Release and deployment management: The product or service after development is released to either test or to live environment.
This release activity needs to be planned and scheduled in advance for proper deliver of product or service in time to meet market
demands.
3. Service operation: This process can be further subdivided into the following processes.
a. Event management: In this process, events are monitored, filtered, grouped, and handled. The action handling will be set based on
the type of event. This is one of the most important processes in services operations. It effects quick identification of and
resolution of issues. Events can be a key input to check if there is any service level agreement (SLA) jeopardy to avoid a possible
SLA failure.
b. Incident management: It is critical that any incident that might disrupt the service is properly handled. Incident management is the
dedicated process that handles this activity in ITIL.
c. Problem management: This process is intended to analyze incident records. Incidents that have occurred can be analyzed to
identify trends. This will help to avoid problems that can cause incidents effecting business or service continuity.
d. Request fulfillment: Change request and information request management need to have a process in place to ensure timely
request fulfillment. The request fulfillment process takes care of this activity.
There are many more processes in ITIL. However, in this section the processes covered are the ones that can be incorporated to work with
eTOM.

22.7 Business Process Flow Modeling

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A typical trouble management process flow in a company that has not aligned with eTOM is shown in Figure 22.3. Let us consider that the
service used by the customer is experiencing failure in operation due to a bug in the vendor software. The usual process flow in resolving this
issue will start with the customer calling up the customer support desk to report the problem. The support desk will verify details of the
customer account and collect all possible information to describe the trouble condition to a sufficient level of detail and create a trouble ticket
for the issue. This ticket number is given to the customer, so that the customer can call up and check the status of the issue resolution easily by
quoting the ticket number to the customer support desk.

Figure 22.3: Business process flow.

From the account details and the problem description on service having issue, the ticket is then assigned to the service support desk. If the
service problem is caused by some provisioning or service configuration fault, the service support desk will reprovision or reconfigure the
service to bring it back to service. In the specific problem scenario being discussed, the problem is with vendor software running on one of the
resources. Upon analysis conducted by the service support desk, the resource that is causing the issue is isolated and the trouble ticket is
assigned to the resource support desk sitting at the network operations center (NOC) owning the resource that has been identified as the
cause of the problem.
The identification of the resource that caused problems in a service is done by analyzing event records generated by the resources. It is
expected that the developer creates enough logs to troubleshoot and fix an issue. The resource team will then analyze the issue and isolate the
cause of the problem. If the problem is caused by a module developed by the service provider, then the ticket is assigned to the team that
developed the module to fix the issue. On the other hand (as in our example) if the problem is caused by a module developed by an external
vendor, then the trouble ticket is assigned to the vendor trouble submission queue.
When the vendor is notified about trouble in their product, based on the support level offered, the vendor will work with the service provider to
resolve the issue. Once the issue is fixed, the information is communicated to the service provider. The service provider will update the status
of the trouble ticket as closed in the ticket database. This activity will generate an event to the customer support desk, so that they call up and
inform the customer that the issue has been resolved. The customer can call the customer support desk not just to enquire the status of the
trouble ticket but also to close the ticket if the issue was temporary or was caused due to some issue that the customer was able to fix as part
of self-service. It is therefore important that all the processes that update the ticket status with the database, first queries the database and
checks the status before making any updates. In addition to ticket status and problem description, the trouble ticket will also contain a history
of activities performed to resolve the trouble ticket, dependencies on other trouble tickets that need to be resolved first, the person who is
currently working on the ticket, and so on.
Now let us look into the flaws in this business process for trouble management. Though the explanation gives a clear idea of the flow, the
process by itself does not give details of the entity responsible for a specific block. For example, it is not clear if analysis of the service
problem is performed by the customer support desk as an initial activity or by the service support team. Another flaw is that several processes
that could have improved productivity of trouble management like centralized tracking and managing that involves searching for similar trouble
conditions is missing. Also the customer support desk does not always try and solve technical issues. The customer support desk isolates the
issue and assigns it to the service support desk. A problem resolution at customer support could have save more than 70% of the cost the
service provider will incur when the problem resolution happens only at vendor support level.
It is in these scenarios where standard models like eTOM will help. The current process needs to be aligned with eTOM using SANRR

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methodology. Here scope (the S in SANRR) is to align trouble management with eTOM. First of all, eTOM has a detailed process map for
each area that helps to clearly identify what entity is responsible for what. For example there are four layers for trouble management in eTOM.
At customer level (customer relationship management layer) there is problem handling, at service level (service management and operations
layer) there is service problem management, at resource level (resource management and operations layer) there is resource trouble
management and at external vendor level (supplier/partner relationship management) there is supplier/partner problem reporting and
management. There are multiple levels of process definition from Level 0 to level 3 with eTOM. The process effects can be improved by
removing invalid processes and adding new processes as per eTOM (see Figure 22.4).

Figure 22.4: Trouble ticketing in eTOM.

22.8 Conclusion
Let us conclude the discussion with the three step methodology from TeleManagement Forum to apply eTOM in conjunction with ITIL. The first
step is to ensure that the best practice specification using ITIL exists with regard to the processes in eTOM model. The second step is to
identify the enterprise area in an application where eTOM needs to be applied in conjunction with ITL. The third and final part involves refining
the identified area using eTOM process elements on the ITIL process steps.
While there are several books and white papers on eTOM and ITIL, the intent of this chapter is to introduce the reader to the most popular
models. A simple process diagram is also explained along with guidelines on how these models can be used together to achieve business
goals.

Additional Reading

1. www.tmforum.org
Latest release of these documents can be downloaded from the Web site:
a. GB921: eTOM Solution Suite
b. TR143: Building Bridges: ITIL and eTOM.

2. Randy A. Steinberg. Servicing ITIL: A Handbook of IT Services for ITIL Managers and Practitioners. Indiana: Trafford Publishing,
2007.

3. John P. Reilly and Mike Kelly. The eTOM: A Business Process Framework Implementer's Guide. New Jersey: Casewise and TM
Forum, 2009.

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